15 October 2010

NPA reacts to generic substitution decision

The NPS has welcomed the Department of Health’s announcement that it will not proceed with proposals to introduce automatic generic substitution.

NPA Policy Manager, Margaret Peycke, said, “The Department of Health appears to have taken into account warnings about patient safety, inter-professional relationships and workload.  The NPA made strong representations on these matters during the consultation period.  

"Automatic generic substitution would have introduced a whole set of problems without presenting significant scope for patient and taxpayer benefit.

"We want to take this opportunity to re-iterate that there are other, more effective ways of achieving value for money from the drugs budget.  We are calling for early roll-out of a national medicines concordance scheme in pharmacies across England.  A structured medicines support service, especially for people newly taking medication for long term conditions was promised by the Department of Health two years ago and is long overdue.  Renewed energy behind existing platforms for achieving better medicines use, such as repeat dispensing,  would also bring about benefits.”